This is a Trip Report from the Economy cabin
Ground Staff
Food & Drink
Entertainment
Seat
Cabin Crew
Our holiday began at home by using OLCI so on arriving at T3 after a quick sprint from T1 we went straight to the on line bag drop to find no-one at the desk. We instead headed to the DIY check in desk to get checked in after negotiating our way past the 'floor walker'. There seemed to be a little confusion here. After explaining to the check in staff that we had checked in on-line, they seemed to think we had used the DIY check-in kiosks which were 'only in trial' for Sydney. A bit more explanation and we were able to proceed. The staff although grateful that we had already chosen seats, complained about the extra work of processing the ETA however the two staff took one each and our boarding passes were promptly produced, one for our flight to HKG and a further pass for reboarding the plane at HKG on the direct flight to SYD.
We passed through security very quickly and then browsed in the many shops before going for steak-frites in chez gerard [:D]. After dinner, we had a quick coffee in starbucks while pondering the long economy flight ahead. [}:)][}:)]
Our flight boarded on time however from our seats 55 H and K we could see why we were still at gate long after we should have taken off before the captain informed us of 'problems loading the aft cargo hold'?!? Once these were solved we took off around 30 minutes late.
Drinks were promptly served followed by dinner (again for us) the usual economy fayre: salad, a chicken pasta thing and chocolate gloop pudding. Then the lights went out and we were very glad to have v:port to amuse ourselves. Although the flight was not full we were too slow to avail of the spare seats. Those who were seated in the middle quickly lay down across all four seats if free and snuggled down for the night!! Flight was uneventful however not much sleep had by either of us. The seats in economy are narrow and this causes a sense of constantly being squished even if you are of average size or less.[xx(]
We had an English breakfast before landing in Hong Kong for a brief stop. On deplaning, passengers were quickly segregated into those in transit and those staying in HKG. Transit passengers were identified with a 'catch me if you can sticker' and directed back towards the departure gates. Ive read in another post a comment about the airport shopping in HKG, from our return trip, most of this is in a different section of the airport. Rather than shop we perked up with a quick coke, although it didn't seem to work much.
The plane turned around in around 1.5hrs, pretty much on schedule. When we boarded we reckoned Y was at least a little busier than on the HK sector. Drinks were served up quickly as before and we both received our first choice meal of Singapore noodles which was actually one of the better meals we had on all our flights. Again the flight was uneventful and a bit blurry, I think we both must have
nodded for a few hours (total) of fitful sleep but only because of extreme tiredness. I seem to remember the seat belt signs being on for an awfully long time and there wasn't much turbulence. We were glad when they went off for a time and we were able to stretch our legs and get some refreshments in the galley. The flight landed at Sydney, after some nice views of the harbour bridge / opera house on the approach, about 20 minutes behind schedule, we were off the plane quickly and baggage was quickly delivered once we had made in through immigration.
We have to conclude that flying direct to Sydney in Y is less than advisable, we were in Australia for a 2 week break and we had severe jet lag [|)][|)][|)] for at least 3 days with symptoms tapering off afterwards. Saying that the the flights were generally good and the cabin crew
tried to make the journey as comfortable as possible.
Robert & Gillian
